Meandering through the World of Warcraft

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Reading the Armory, A to Z

Last night I was chatting with a guildie, telling him that another guildie has a really cute name for one of his alts.

The alt in question is a gnome, and is called Anklegank. Don’tcha just love it?? There are 26 of them, so it definitely appealed to more than one player (as opposed to Goldslipper, which everyone in WoW has had the obvious good sense to avoid, as I am the one and only Goldslipper in the game…..that could be its own post, I think).

My little thrill with Anklegank’s name led me to reveal to my friend that I absolutely LOVE the naming creativity that goes on in the game, and that I would be the geek who would be able to just sit and go through the Armory, A to Z, looking at all of the character, guild and arena team names, giggling and appreciating the inspiration that folks have when they come up with them. Oh yeah, I’d probably have to get out the Ibuprofen after looking at a lot of horribly botched spellings and other bad ideas too, but finding the gems might be totally worth it, no? Tauren alone have inspired a wealth of amazing names…..the things you can do with the idea of cows, I never would have guessed.

Then, I needed to leave the computer to warm up some pasta for my older daughter, and the REALLY crazy idea struck. If any of you have ever been pregnant, or had a wife that was pregnant, then you just might remember the whole “baby names” experience. Ring a bell? Huh? You know, hours paging through one, or maybe a small pile of books that contain names and their etymologies, classified in whatever method the author chooses (i.e., classic, charmed, geographical, ethnic, created, etc, etc, etc…..), all to help you decide what is the best name for your little one (cue ray of light and angelic music here) who is about to grace the earth with his/her presence. One of my personal favorites was the Anne Geddes one, because of the cute photographs of babies in little outfits, but I digress…..

What if, my brain said, Blizzard (or someone) created a special-anniversary type of book, of all of the coolest names in the game? Wouldn’t that be totally cool? And it could involve little vignettes or discussions with the players about how they came up with their alt or guild or arena name, and maybe some backstories for the rp’ers and things like that, and cool screenshots, and all kinds of stuff like that……. Stupid? Crazy? Cool?

My brain nearly fell off of its seat, waving its hand in the air to volunteer for the job…..

Okay, so now that you know that I love names, if you find a really really good one, you must come here and tell me about it, kay? (Not that I am hunting for comments, but, well, yes, I am hunting for comments and I don’t want to have to write a post called “Will Dance Naked on Org Bank For Comments”, so please go find a cute name and come comment about it here)